The Ministry of Culture intervened in December 2017 to withdraw the sale of the manuscript from an auction, declaring it a national treasure and banning its export.
The ministry said in a statement that it had paid 4.55 million euros ($ 5.34 million) to acquire the work for France.
He hailed the text as a “monument” which has influenced many authors.
– ‘Tears of blood’ –
of Culture, the manuscript was to be sold at an auction of phone number library historical documents belonging to the French investment company Aristophil, closed in a scandal two years before, taking with it the money of the investors.
Sade wrote the controversial work about four wealthy libertines in search of sexual gratification on a scroll made of pieces of parchment he had smuggled into his cell in the Bastille prison.
When the Paris prison was stormed at the start of the French Revolution on July 14, 1789, the famous aristocrat was freed, but he was swept away by the crowds without his manuscript.
Sade believed it had been lost at the hands of looters and cried “tears of blood” over it, but the unfinished manuscript was preserved after being hidden by a revolutionary and then secretly purchased by an aristocrat, the Marquis de Villeneuve-Trans.